Is doping good for sport?

There was a very interesting article in the Economist a few months ago based on game theory and how we are all complicit from fans, through competitors to governing bodies.

I don't think this is behind a firewall but I may have been logged in inadvertently. If so, let me know and I'll post the text. Well worth a read.

http://tinyurl.com/msnge8y

Paul.

Aapje - I think he is arguing that if we stopped doping that people would run just 11 secs sprints, and so there would be a regression of sorts, which people would not be interested in. Not that if doping never existed.

I think you are being a bit too literal.

What I find interesting here is that there is a much deeper understanding of the doping problem on this thread, as opposed to the debates of Chris Horner's Vuelta victory.

So much of what we see with sport now is artifice. Drugs seemed to have wormed their way into all aspects. It is probably most laughable in the US where their Sports Stars are freakish by any stretch of the imagination. In fact it seems likely that to compete at the top end you need to dope from a young age, which is sad. Look to at how rugby players have changed. I know that the game only recently became professional, but the average size, weight and shape of every player on the pitch has changed dramatically.

I think the predominance of steroids in American sport has even influenced their film making and what they deem as heroic (Schwarzenegger and Stallone). One problem the US army has is that they have soldiers who have bulked up so much on steroids they can barely do manuoeuvres efficiently. Feeding that biomass is not easy in the field either.

Thankfully our screens are no longer filled with steroidal jerks like they once were, but it does make you think about the subconscious effect of it all. We like to make heroes of our athletes, we like them to be super human, and making them ordinary means that we feel we can all have a pop. Part of the commercialisation of sport has predicated this as determining factor - the bigger the gap between what the average person can do and their sports heroes the more the sport can market itself.

At the moment there is not enough of an outside influence on sports like football and tennis to lead to a big drugs bust. Look at the way Fuentes was covered up. That would destroy La Liga, the biggest football franchise. As such nothing is being done to change that and so an outside influence will no doubt be required. I think this is why WADA has been set up, but there is so much politics to play that it may be some time.

"Dimeo points out the reality of the drugs arms race that led to Ben Johnson’s positive for the steroid stanozolol after winning the 100m sprint in the 1988 Olympics and the dominance and downfall of Lance Armstrong. Both athletes thought - rightly - that all their main rivals were doping. They felt they had to dope to level the playing field, and to win."

All of their main doped rivals were, of course, doping, but not ALL of their rivals. Many chose not to and were denied the opportunity to show what they were naturally capable of because the synthetics were miles ahead. Armstrong appears, with the cooperation and support of many in US cycling and industry and cycling governing bodies, to have gone out with the intention of doping better than anybody else and so to win. The playing field when you start to manipulate the body so fundamentally is never level, so you get to the stage when you have people performing like robots (Rasmussen and Contador in 2007 is a case in point). Armstrong's great advantage lay in having a hugely better doping programme than anybody else. Is sport better when it's down to having a bigger and better doping programme than your opponent? I don't think so. I don't think it's even sport. We, the viewing public, need belief that what top athletes are doing has a link to us so we can relate to it and how hard it is, that's how their performances inspire awe. Otherwise, it's meaningless.

Interesting comments about Messi; if anybody has looked on another road.cc string at the Armstrong Lie film press conference, a comment is made about how other sports are on the precipice of being exposed as riddled with drugs as cycling recently has. There's no doubt that the performances of some high-intensity football teams - Barcelona and Spain the most high profile - look artificial as do those of some tennis players, male and female.

The biggest flaw with this argument is the idea that people going faster is more exciting. This may be true in dumb competitions like the 100m sprint that are so boring that people only care about records being broken. However, for cycling only relative differences and unpredictability are relevant. It's not any more exciting for riders to go up a mountain at 15 km/h or 20 km/h. What's exciting is the differences between riders.

It's fun if riders can have exceptionally good or poor days. What is exciting is when the GC competitors have to work together to distance a rival. Doping reduces the variability and allows single doped teams to control a race, making it very boring. Just look at how boring the Lance's wins were, with his team just controlling most of the race. The Sky train is just as boring.

The attention LA got had very little to do with exciting racing, but more with his story, nationalist feelings in the US and other factors. Not exciting racing.

Dimeo's arguments are confused and have huge problems, which he simply doesn't address.

Quote:

The discussion around sport - from newspaper headlines to in-depth biographies - has benefited greatly from drugs. The public love stories where drugs make sports stars seem like human beings - tragically flawed.

This is just nonsense. Endemic drug use just breeds cynicism and devalues genuine sporting performance. There's been a noticeable lack of public celebration over Chris Horner's Vuelta win. I think that's because most people just can't take it seriously.

Quote:

When I look back at Ben Johnson and at others - Marion Jones, Michael Rasmussen, David Millar, Marita Koch and so many more - I see people driven by a desire to win, for themselves and their families, and I can't bring myself to see anything wrong in that.

Take the argument to it's logical conclsion; why stop with drugs? Would it be acceptable if Lance Armstrong had won the Tour de France by pushing his rivals into a ditch? How about equipping the riders with knives, or guns? I'm sure it would make the racing more exciting, but would it be acceptable, and if not, why not? Is it acceptable to cheat using drugs (in Dimeo's view) because that's an "invisible" transgression?

This is not just about pro sport. The same rules apply to everyone. I enjoy competitive cycling, and I don't want to be in a position where I have to take potentially dangerous drugs to compete in my sport.

Dimeo's analysis just seems weak and poorly thought out.

Unfortunately what we are faced with is the winner is usually the biggest cheat. What seems unbelievable is so for a reason - that person found a new way to boost their performance. Some will accuse me of being terribly cynical - well most drugs cheat are too, if we took their word for it they'd get away with it.

Doping in some respects (ignoring the health risks and the collateral damage of those emulating their heroes), if it were made clear and open, is not a problem and might give rise to a level playing field to begin with. But what seems to happen is that someone finds some a new drug, a new way of avoiding tests and sometimes the drug has a stronger effect. Nature is not a level playing field, but as a base unit it really is a good starting point for finding out the best of humanity.

You have to think with all that we know about training and diet why individuals 'come out of nowhere' to take the sport by storm. Or that 'they have a new training technique'. As mentioned, there is a wide scope of possibility for humanity, but genetic outliers will reach the top. But the feasibility of performances is very dubious (look at the way in which the 100m record has suddenly tumbled, and old records are now humdrum, even those by known doped athletes). As Judge Judy says "if it's too good to be true, it probably is!"

One argument I have heard put forward is to have a doped and clean version of events - not one I favour but you can see where it is coming from !
In my view banned substances are banned for a good reason and a cheat is a cheat. With cycling, the omerta has to be broken and backs turned on those who cheat thereafter.
Armstrong was compelling viewing in his time because of his dominance and consistency. Now it is out in the open, who cares about that era ? Not me as the whole spectacle was a sham. I seem to recall at the depths of the doping scandals crowds fell in number (I recall the guy running alongside the peloton in a syringe suit & not many others roadside). Think of the guys who fell away from the sport because they wouldn't cheat (something Millar acknowledged in his book ). So no, cheating doesn't boost the sport but it risks and ruins lives unnecessarily.
What brought cycling back to the popular imagination in my opinion was the idea that it could be done clean with the efforts of certain teams (new heroes to cheer on).

I agree there are good comments here and generally made in a clear and sensible manner which is great for debate and I tend to believe that sensible debate is a good thing.

One question that I often consider is what do we mean by "good for the sport"?

Is it increased numbers of followers?
Is it more and bigger top level teams?
Is it more money into the sport?
Is it more time on mainstream television?
Is it bigger numbers taking part?
Is it more spectacular and amazing feats by the competitors?

I'd suggest that there are indeed valid arguments that doping, and in particular Lance Armstrong's contribution, have contributed significantly to the above.

But is "good for the sport" is actually about:

Young people getting into healthy competitive activity?
A sport that benefits the health and well being of the participants?
Sensible amounts of money into the sport, (with the consequential lower pressure to cheat)?
A perception among competitors that the playing field is level?
A perception among competitors that they don't need to risk their health and their lives to succeed?
A chance for the underdog to sometimes come out on top?
A belief among followers that what they've seen is "real"?

If the answer to these is yes then doping is clearly not good for the sport.

My own fear is that we've gone so far over the last 100+ years that we can't fully escape the doping culture that has developed. Remember that the first doping related death in cycling occurred at least 117 years ago, more than 60 years before it was banned!

I know where I stand on this, especially having stopped competitive cycling due to a medical need to take prohibited substances, but I fully understand that there are many views on doping.

It would be nice if the UCI were at least able to form and publish a view of what it might consider to be "for the good of the sport" - a challenge for Mr. Cookson perhaps.

In 100+ years from now I expect the debate to still be rumbling on.

Some good comments here. The problem with drugs in sports is that it promotes a nuclear arms race of taking ever more powerful drugs with who knows what effects.

Try telling the families of the amateur cyclists who died in their sleep from EPO use that doping has a positive effect? imaca above is right, young men and women emulate their stars and heroes, and usually without the access to proper health care that professional athletes do.

The perception is that drug taking is in the minority, and that the cheats get caught because there is 'a test'. The actuality is that the testing is ineffectual, and doping is fairly widespread.

Drug fuelled performances have made sport more exciting, because it has allowed the bar to be moved beyond what people deem possible and so it is surprising when Armstrong powers up a mountain at a speed some would find astonishing on a flat. But it is the lie that is inherent in this which gives it the air of popularity that keeps the sport afloat. While it is exciting, and astonishing it robs people of what can be achieved naturally, and the dominance it gives athletes like Armstrong actually rob the audience of the reality and grit of true rivalry.

People love to back a winner and doping helps that, but it destroys the hopes for the underdog. It reduces true competition. Virtually all of the best battles and competitions in athletics can be made exciting without drugs, but will we ever be able to go to a world where we are drug free? I doubt it. Perhaps the only way to level it is to be honest about it, and put limits on the doping (like the 50% hematocrit did once upon a time).

Some comments seem a little harsh. From this article (I haven't seen the full talk) he doesn't seem to be saying that doping is desirable or "good", but acknowledging that (dishonestly) increasing physical capabilities can lead to improved sporting performances. Often this side of the debate is omitted (not surprisingly given the responses when someone articulates it).

Of course it's possible to have rivalry without doping, but if the testing wasn't adequate then it's not that surprising that people (and regimes) decided to cheat, and there's no reason that the innocent (naive?) spectators shouldn't have been enthralled by the results. The goal now is to maintain the rivalries and the competition but without the drugs, which will only happen if the chances and consequences of getting caught greatly outweigh the benefits of getting away with it.

Perhaps this should be titled:

"Paul Dimeo - Is rehashing an idea already done, and done much better, in a dumbed down way to attract controversy and attention from the masses a good way of boosting my otherwise unnoteworthy career"?

University of Stirling? Sling it.

Only works with deception.
Yes, most mainstream sports make token efforts to catch drug cheats because they see the negative impact this has had on sports like athletics and cycling. In the minds of most of the public, no drug cheats caught = no cheating. If sports were to actually admit drug use takes place and legitimize drug taking, public interest might take a nose dive. How many people do you know who think cycling is meaningless because everyone takes drugs? Cycling is a laughing stock.
The dark side of all this is health effects. Steroid and HGH use is rampant among teens in, for example, South Africa, because they see their rugby playing mates getting bigger, and want to match them. Here in NZ I know of teens who have done the same. Thanks largely to rugby, being big is cool. Who knows what price these kids will be paying in 30 or 40 years?

This from the article doesn't make sense, there would have been rivalry without everyone being on drugs!

“Few countries wanted to host the event, there was little sponsorship money and, beset by boycotts, the movement nearly collapsed. However, what made the Olympics interesting through the 1960s, 70s and 80s - breathed life into the whole affair - was the Cold War rivalry between the Soviet Union, East Germany and the US and their respective allies.

What a waste of time that was.

He is confusing a great performance with doping. Great performances were responsible. Great performances are possible without doping. Therefore, no, doping is and was not good for the sport. Just look at the damage Lance and all other dopers do and did to the sport they allegedly loved.